As many people probably were I was attracted to an article at Inc.com titled “Social Media is a Waste of Time”. I’m also assuming that most of my fellow clickers thought that they’d be reading a ritual disembowelment of social media by the clever people at Inc.

In fact the article was really the exact opposite, promoting social media for small business and even offering six steps for ensuring that you didn’t waste your time. Here’s tip number 1:

1. Pick the right channels.

You know that location is everything in business, so make sure you are in the right place. What social media sites do your customers use? How do they use them? Where do they turn to research your product? You need to be where they are and where they are talking to each other. For example, if you run a restaurant, you should pay attention to Yelp. If you have a jogging-goods store, you may want to engage with folks on RunKeeper. If you offer laser hair removal you should know all about Groupon (if you don’t already).

All very good stuff and actually very useful. I guess that the real moral of the story is that as soon as people run articles with titles like “Social Media is a Waste of Time” it really means that the opposite is clearly true but that the article writer is just not clever enough to come up with a captivating headline. What’s next? “Tea Party Not Full Of Angry White Males!”

Posted by John Tully
sales & marketing assistance for small business
dsm-llc.com